Armed Forces Memorial – The Stretcher Bearers

The Stretcher Bearers.
One of the two groups of sculpture at the centre of the AFM at the National Memorial Arboretum at Alrewas, near Lichfield, in Staffordshire. This group illustrates the loss and grief surrounding the mortal injury of a soldier. The imagery taken from classical mythology, is transposed to the modern world of warfare: the wounded and dying Patroclus carried back to camp on the shield of Achilles. The soldier, carried high above the heads of his comrades on a stretcher, is greeted by the distraught mother and child. He is mourned here also by his grieving parents.